Responding to negative online reviews: The effects of hotel responses on customer inferences of trust and concern

Our research examines the perceptions and evaluations of prospective customers toward an online negative review and any accompanying hotel response. The study explores two main issues: whether the presence (versus absence) of an organizational response to negative customer reviews affects the inferences potential consumers draw about the target business, and which aspects of responses affect their impressions. We test the effects of four variables associated with a response: source of response, voice of responder, speed of response, and action frame on two outcomes variables (i.e., customer concern and trust inferences). The provision of an online response (versus no response) enhanced inferences that potential consumers draw regarding the business's trustworthiness and the extent to which it cares about its customers. Using a human voice and a timely response yielded favorable customer inferences. Inferences did not vary with response source or action frame. Implications are drawn for effective management of negative online reviews.     

FDI spillovers in the Chinese hotel industry: The role of geographic regions,star-rating classifications,ownership types,and foreign capital origins

Although productivity spillovers have long been recognized to be a major benefit of foreign direct investment (FDI), such spillovers have not yet been systematically studied in the context of the hotel industry. This paper investigates hotel-related FDI spillover effects as well as moderating factors (geographic region, star rating classification, ownership type and foreign capital origin) in China. Evidence from province-level panel data reveals the existence and significance of intra-industry spillovers from foreign to domestic hotels in China, although the nature and magnitude vary based on different moderating factors. Domestic hotels in eastern and western China and those with alliance and limited liability ownership structures benefit significantly from productivity spillovers. Foreign-invested three-star hotels transfer a significant amount of positive productivity, whereas domestic three- and five-star hotels benefit the most from productivity spillovers. Moreover, foreign-invested hotels from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan (HMT) and non-HMT countries generate positive spillovers of similar magnitudes.     

How much do online consumers really value free product returns? Evidence from eBay

Consumer return rates have been steadily rising in recent years, resulting in growing costs for retailers who must manage the returns process and the disposition of returned products. This cost pressure is driven in part by extremely generous return policies, such as giving consumers a full refund upon return. Interestingly, this common retail practice of full refunds is inconsistent with the recommendations of many analytical models of returns, which nearly always show that a partial refund is optimal. Such inconsistencies between theory and practice might arise when the decision drivers included in the analytical models do not match the decision drivers in practice. It might also be the case that retailers are overly optimistic about the value that consumers assign to a full refund, and thus assume that the value of such a policy outweighs its costs. In this paper, we use data collected from eBay, where identical products are sold with different return policies, to investigate these open questions in the literature. We analyze both the return policy drivers from the retailer's perspective and the return policy value from the consumer's perspective. Our results suggest that the value of a full refund policy to consumers may not be as large as one might expect, and it also exhibits a large heterogeneity across buyers with different levels of online purchase experience. In addition, we provide empirical evidence for what has long been suspected by online retailers – that a non-refundable forward shipping charge quickly erodes any value that consumers assign to return policies. The generality of our results is limited by the fact that eBay differs from traditional retail contexts in many respects, including the fact that eBay buyers may not be representative of the general buyer population. However, our study of how eBay consumers value free returns provides new insights into an understudied area, and it can serve as a starting point for future studies of the value of return policies in other retail contexts.     

Web users’ behavioural patterns of tourism information search: From online to offline

This paper presents a conceptual framework of Web users’ engagement in tourism information search for a comprehensive understanding of their integrated online and offline search behaviour. The information search experiences are characterised as a process constituting some common elements: prior knowledge and searching experiences, online searching strategies, processing and recording information, barriers to online searching, reasons for ending an online search, summarising information, exchanging information and searching for more information through other sources. Such behaviour goes beyond the scope of information searching and captures the other activities, including information processing, utilising and disseminating. The grounded theory research method is employed as an inductive investigative process in which the authors construct the framework by systematically collecting and analysing data. The aim of this research method is to build a theory. The data sets consist of both semi-structured in-depth interviews with subjects and their field observations based on online searching. A theoretical model incorporating 10 propositions is proposed for future testing.     

Exploring the core factors of online purchase decisions by building an E-Commerce network evolution model

With the continuous development of the Internet and information technology, online shopping has become a popular purchase mode. The in-depth analysis of consumer decision-making in online shopping is an important issue. Our purpose is to study how the factors of the shopping web pages corporately affect online purchase decisions and determine which are the core factors that affect consumer purchase decisions. We screen the influencing factors on the shopping webpage and deploy e-commerce network evolution based on various weight combinations of these factors to generate sales distributions of online products. By comparing these simulated sales distributions to the real data, the optimal weight of each factor is obtained. The results show that sales volume and the number of high-quality negative comments are the most important factors influencing consumers' decision-making, the number of comments and the number of comments with pictures are relatively minor factors, store type and video presentation of the products have the least impact. The optimal simulated sales distribution is very close to the real case and verifies that the introduced network evolution technology is applicable. The proposed model can be used as a uniform evaluation platform for correlational study, which is an important link in the purchase research chain.     

Understanding the role of situational factors on online grocery shopping among older adults

This paper seeks to identify the situational factors that drive the adoption of online grocery shopping among older adults. A two-step research process is employed. First, exploratory qualitative research is carried out to identify situational factors that older adults take into account when deciding whether to buy groceries online. This is followed by a conjoint experiment to determine which situational factors are considered most important when making such a decision. The sample consisted of 9 participants in the in-depth individual interviews and 206 respondents in the conjoint experiment. The findings indicate that health, mobility issues, and distance to a store are the most important situational factors driving older adults to buy groceries online. Moreover, the findings confirm that the adoption of online grocery shopping among older adults is a result of a complex trade-off of situational variables. The findings contribute to managerial practice by providing online grocery retailers with insight that can be applied when designing promotional programs targeted at older adults.     

Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy in the Hotel Industry: Evidence from the Balearic Islands

This paper attempts to identify some of the main factors affecting a hotel establishment's decision to adopt (or not), and to what extent, socially and environmentally responsible business practices. Salient among the results obtained is the fact that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is likely to be part of a hotel's product differentiation strategy; additionally, it is shown that productivity aspects such as scale economies, as well as the hotel's internal organization, also impact a hotel's CSR strategy. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于结合分析方法的常客计划顾客价值研究——以中国经济型酒店为例

常常客计划在航空业、酒店业、银行和零售业等领域已经得到广泛的应用,并成为标准的市场营销和客户管理工具。文章通过对国外研究文献的回顾,总结出了常客计划的概念、作用机制和构成要素。在总结国内主要品牌经济型酒店常客计划方案的基础上,利用正交设计产生了一个关于经济型酒店会员计划奖励方式偏好的调查表。利用这个调查表进行了针对酒店入住者的问卷调查,基于结合分析方法对调查数据进行了统计分析,实证了消费者对经济型酒店会员奖励方式的偏好。实证结果表明,基于年内住店时间和费用负担方式两个变量所划分的四类人群对各种奖励措施有不同的偏好。现有的常客计划并没有满足不同类型消费者的特定需求。研究结论提示,企业应当基于市场细分设计其常客计划,并力求实现吸引顾客和提高品牌价值的平衡。     

对旅游饭店星级评定中安全与应急预案规定标准的分析

《旅游饭店星级的划分与评定》（GB/T14308-2010）于2011年1月1日起开始实施。这部标准在旅游饭店安全与应急预案的规定比历次标准更加细化与明确,形成了比较完备的促进旅游饭店业整体发展的星级评定管理体系。它不仅提出有限服务饭店与完全服务饭店的概念,还特别强调安全与应急管理,这是该标准的最大亮点,体现和谐社会中＂人性化＂的要求,为此,它要求培育企业安全文化,使旅游饭店在运营中明确安全理念、安全制度、应急预案的重要地位和对宾客的重要性。但在安全与应急预案中的相关规定中还存有一些值得探讨和分析的问题。通过对《旅游饭店星级的划分与评定》（GB/T14308-2010）的思考和细致分析,指出其中需修补完善的地方,认为星评标准是动态的,在实践和应用中要不断的根据客观情况加以调整。因此,根据旅游管理理论和实践两方面的要求,提出进一步完善的建议。     

The Effect of Social Cues on Sniping Behavior in Internet Auctions: Field Evidence and a Lab Experiment

This research explores how social cues presented in an online auction affect sniping behavior. Sniping is a strategy of placing a bid on an item in the very ending stages of an auction with a pre-determined ending time in an attempt to win the auction. Such a strategy conceals the intentions of the bidder until the last moments of the auction and minimizes the possibility of other opposing bidders submitting higher bids due to the short period of time left to respond. The research includes two field studies and a lab experiment indicating that sniping appears to be influenced by social factors, that is, when there are a greater number of bidders in the auction or the auction site provides social information about the bidders, the relative use of sniping increases. This research supports the perspective that bidders rely on others' bidding behavior and characteristics as an indication of the true value of the item on sale, and is one of the first studies in the literature which takes this perspective.